Middlemen in English Business 331 



properly called a Merchant . . . who passeth ouer the Seas 

 . . . and from thence transports merchandise."^ 



This concept wherein the merchant was conceived as doing a trans- 

 marine business carried with it several accessory notions. In the 

 first place, the merchant might sail the seas as supercargo. The 

 above-quoted definition holds clearly this content. Other references 

 might be cited to the same effect.^ In the early seventeenth century 

 the merchant had not generally differentiated from the itinerant class 

 who carried their goods in person; the supercargo was not general. 

 In the second place, the merchant might have connection with the 

 ownership and direction of the ships employed. He sometimes was 

 captain, owner and merchant at once, or he united one of these 

 functions with that of merchant. During the seventeenth century 

 particularly, he specialized as merchant resident and used agents as 

 carriers and buyers and sellers abroad. Thirdly, he might be a mem- 

 ber of an association of merchants incorporated by royal or municipal 

 charter, and engage mth his fellows in the organization and dispatch 

 of trading expeditions and in the establishment of factories and trad- 

 ing stations in foreign lands. He was one of a Company of Merchants 

 Adventurers. Lastly, he might be dealer with certain countries and 

 in certain commodities, in some of which he became expert. In other 

 words, there was a two-fold basis^ of specialization and classification 

 developing: (a) the commodity dealt in, and (b) the country dealt 

 mth. There w^ere, for instance, "the marchans of cloth lynnen and 

 woUen," and the Muscovy and Levant merchants. 



But foreign trade was divided into an "active" and a "passive" 

 class; in the former the English merchants were the initiators, the 

 undertakers, and conductors of the traffic; in the latter the merchants 

 of Flanders, of the ItaHan cities and France brought their wares to 

 England, established business relations, and carried products away. 

 The "passive" commerce, among other things, required a wholesaler 

 or big dealer who in short time and at short notice could dispose of 

 and fit out whole cargoes. It was equally needful that some big 

 dealer assemble the wares from and distribute into the interior parts 



'^Weever, Auc. Fun. Mon., 341. 



2 See Raleigh, Hist, of World, I, IV, II, Sec. 18, 204 (1614), "Hee . . . 

 pretending the death of his Marchant besought the French . . . that they 

 might burie their Marchant in hallowed ground." Ditto (1681), R. Knox, Hist. 

 Rel. Ceylon, IV, I, 118, "My Father the Captain ordered me with Mr. John 

 Loveland, Merchant of the Ship, to go on shore." (See New Diet.) 



^ The same classification was the most common in 1747; Campbell, 288. 



